Papaver rhoeas
by misskitsune13
Summary: 1940s AU War time. Fang is a bomb girl/photographer. Lightning an officer in the police force. Set in Great Britain.
1. Chapter 1

**Well hello there you, like romance do you? AU Flight? You are in the right place. There's only a little drama, but this fic is a love story at heart - so hopefully it'll mostly be swooning you do!**

**1940s AU War time. Fang is a bomb girl/photographer, spending her weekdays filling the innards of the bombs that will be sent to aid the war effort, and her nights developing photographs in her darkroom. Lightning is a Police Officer, living with her sister Serah and estranged from her parents. The war has been a way out from the stifling traditional way of life, but especially these women, who might finally have both the independence they crave, and to fall in love.**

**DISCLAIMER: The rights to these characters in no way belong to me, but to the Final Fantasy franchise. This story isn't affiliated with them - I'm just borrowing them a little while.**

FANG:

The bell rang, and the rest of the working girls dropped their gloves and started towards the changing room doors. I carefully brushed the dust from my dark blue jumpsuit, tucking my gloves into the waistband of my called me over; "You coming Fang? We're going to the Ritz this evening."

"I'm alright, thanks. Going to head home - I've got some film to develop."

"Alright, see you Monday." A chorus of goodbyes followed me on my way out of the factory, and I headed on the long walk home. It was still light out; pink just washing gently over the clouds as the sun set. Later the sky would turn a deep red, and I'd wonder if that was the colour of the fields in France. I was filled with a pang of loss, but I wasn't sure what it was I was missing. I'd always been told I felt things too strongly as a child, with a temper so unlike that of a proper lady, and a laugh that came too easily. But this war, awful as it was, suited me. With the money I made from working as a bomb girl, I could finally afford to develop my own photographs, and of course, my own space to do it in.

Earl Street was quiet, the oak trees mirroring it were bathed that soft amber glow of dusk, and not for the first time, I wished that I had brought my camera to work with me. I unlocked the door to my terraced house; a small cat, the colour of cream, laced itself around my legs as I did so. "Alright, Mog, we'll get you something to eat as soon as you let me in." Dropping my satchel I headed to the kitchen, Mog still in tow, mewling for milk. I poured a little into a dish and placed it on the sideboard. He jumped up, pushed his nose into my fingers as a thank you and set about drinking his supper.

"I guess you've had a hungry day hey boy?" I popped a lemon sherbet in my mouth and headed to the basement that I called my dark room.

My camera, a Kodak Retina II, sat carefully on a shelf as I walked in, the door shutting softly behind me. I ran my fingertips over the shutter button that shimmered silver in the low light. Photographs hung drying on wires strung diagonally from the back of the stairs above me down into the basement, shuttered red and orange lamps coveted the far wall, a long battered table, covered in rolls of films and various pots dominated the room. A big basin stood resolute in the right hand corner, whilst a bed, layered with woollen blankets and cushions coveted the wall next to it. This basement would double up as my bomb shelter during a raid, and it was one of the many reasons I'd chosen the house. I swung the needle to the record on the gramophone, and _"How High the Moon"_ rang out around me. I retied my head scarf and lost myself in pictures and colours.

It was late, or early, when the sirens started, accompanied by a pounding against the front of the house. Someone was trying to get in. To be safe. I jumped up, taking the stairs two by two to get to the door. Mog raced down past me, a flash of white. My heart was an animal locked between my ribs; whilst I may have somewhere safe to hide during the raid, others did not. I hurriedly unlocked the front door, and as it swung inward, a figure crashed into me. The ground shook, and I realised with horror that the bombs were already here.

_"Hide."_ The woman in my arms choked out, but I was ahead of her – half-dragging her away from the chaos that threatened my home. I kicked the door closed and pulled the woman, stumbling down the stairs into the darkroom, locking up behind us. Dust fell from the rafters above us like snow. The woman fell onto her knees, and my hands slid away from her ribs, slick and wet with blood.

"Oh my god." I picked her up, helping her to the bed. She was shaking, quiet whimpers escaping her throat. I bunched up a cloth and pressed it above her stomach, placing her slim hands atop it. "Hold here, hold it real tight, okay?"

"I am sorry-"

"Shush now, don't speak. Don't waste your energy." I turned my gaze to hers, and her aqua eyes reflected the orange lights of the room, they flickered like flames. "And don't you dare apologise."

I ran some water into a basin, setting on the small stove to warm it. When it was hot, I rushed back to the bed. "We need to clean this. I don't have any hooch-"

"I do, it's in…in the left pocket. Trousers."

I undid the button and slid out a small hipflask. The strong smell of alcohol escaped as I unscrewed it. I set it next to the basin, and replaced her hands with mine. "What's your name?"

"Officer, Officer…Lightning." Lightning gasped as I tore her shirt to get a better look at the wound. It was long, a jagged slash across her ribcage on her left side. _Blimey_.

"Oerba Yun Fang, but just call me Fang." I tilted the bottle gently. "This is gonna hurt doll. Just hold on."

Time seemed to stretch, and minutes became endless. The only measure that mattered was that of the Officer's breaths laid before me. I'd cleaned the cut, and stitched it, bandaging it afterwards. It was nowhere near a neat finish but it was tidy enough, and it worked. Lightning had passed out from the pain somewhere around the middle of it all, whilst the walls shaking only just a little more than my hands. The sirens had stopped a while ago but I was still stuck in the same state that I had been when I had opened the door, adrenaline rushing around my body, leaving me tense, in a kind of unfinished frenzy. Although now exhaustion was beginning to drag me away from my vigil.

I sat next to her, unsure of what to do. Mog had taken a liking to our visitor immediately, curling up behind her knees. My gaze followed the lines of Lighting's figure, a wave of curves. Her shirt now lay in tatters on the floor next to me, and I'd tucked a blanket around her shoulders to keep her warm, trying not to look too much at her half-dressed body. Her hair splayed out in a sea of silvery pink across the mattress – I had never seen hair like that before. Her hand kept clenching, whilst she struggles within the clutches of either nightmares or pain, or perhaps even both. I slipped mine into it, finally calmed when our fingers were interwoven. As I drifted off to sleep, laid half across the mess of pillows on the floor and the mattress above, my last thoughts were of how beautiful a photograph she would make.


	2. Chapter 2

LIGHTNING:

I woke up to an orange world, and for a moment, I was convinced I was still dreaming, and that I was back camping in the Northern mountains with Serah, watching the sun rise. But a sharp pain in my ribs reminded me of where I really was.

_Sirens. I'd been on shift, sorting out a brawl over ration coupons at a joint downtown. But then the blaring sirens had dominated the night, and the streets became blacker, as lights were hurriedly put out. Priorities shifted and I'd sent as many as I could to the shelters below ground. The streets were full with running bodies. Suddenly, an explosion. I found myself thrown, on my back, shrapnel, earth and brick rocketing up around me with those who'd been too slow. The panic, then. The fear against the thing that no one could see and the sickening realisation that the sirens hadn't been fast enough. _

_I'd dragged myself up, stared into the smoky dark to see a lone light shining through it all. A house. The chances were that someone who hadn't switched off a light were already in a basement. I ran then, fuelled by some deep animal instinct that pushed me on. Pounded on the door until a dishevelled dark haired angel had caught me in her arms and I had been struck by how hilarious I would find it at any other time, that someone else's grip on my life had been stronger than my own, that I'd collapsed like some fair-haired Victorian lady._

_After that, fragments. Pain, blood. Warmth. And finally, sleep._

I opened my eyes fully, to find a small cat staring at me curiously, purring so hard that its entire frame shivered with it.

"Well hello there." My voice was a soft whisper, and I lifted a hand to stroke it. The cat huffed, curiosity stated now that I was awake. He hopped across my legs to investigate the other in the room.

Fang lay half on the bed with me, head using one arm as a pillow whilst the other was a hair's breadth away from mine, and it came to me that she must have held my hand whilst I was sleeping. I was struck with a mixture of embarrassment and gratefulness – scolding myself that I had needed comforting, but thankful that she had given it without question. Her hair snuck out in waves from her headscarf, covering half of her face. I wished that I could see her out of this light that coloured everything in its wake.

I sat up gently on my elbows, taking in the strings of curling photographs pegged on the lines above us, the pots of developer fluid and empty film canisters littering the rugs that covered the floor. Darkroom. The word was unfamiliar, and yet I somehow knew that this was the correct name for it. I swung my legs gingerly off the side of the mattress, being careful not to knock Fang. I wrapped the blanket tightly around my shoulders. I padded over to one of the lines, tracing the edges a photo. A field, full of poppies. The next depicted a young woman with red hair. Her work clothes were smudged with dirt as she lounged against a warehouse wall, laughing hard, her hand on her belly.

I moved from photo to photo, temporarily distracted from the pain in my body, from the flashing images of what I had seen a few hours ago. The photos were all beautiful. I have never been particularly artistic, more interested in living life than preserving it within something. But these were perfect moments, caught by a very elegant photographer. I came to the final picture on the line, a damp sheen across its surface – clearly it had only recently been developed. A self-portrait of Fang, her camera and tripod reflected in a gilded mirror. Curls tumbled across her bare shoulders, a cream corset barely visible underneath a lace slip. Her eyes were dark, hand resting on the top of the camera, fingertip just touching the button for the shutter. The photograph was so utterly intimate that I didn't know where to look, and yet, even as a blush crept across my neck, I couldn't look away. You shouldn't be looking – you barely know her! But she is very beautiful…and there is something so arresting about her.

"Officer?" I turned around, cheeks flaming, and hoped she wouldn't see. Fang had undone the head scarf, and so her hair looked very similar to the self-portrait. I couldn't keep my eyes from watching the curls.

"Please, call me Claire." I surprised myself with the words that slipped out before I could check them. _Call me Claire. What am I doing?_ My first name was a rare thing, and one that I rarely gifted to strangers. And yet… I wanted to know this enigmatic woman who had saved my life. I was under no illusions that I would have bleed out and died on the streets were it not for her care.

"Okay, Claire it is. How are you feeling?" Fang now stood opposite me, and she pressed a hand to my face.

"Weak, but alive. Thank you, I would have died had you not helped me."

"Well, there are easier ways to meet people than to battle with the bombs you know."

"I do. I've had easier fights."

Fang laughed, and I found myself giggling as though I'd been drinking hooch. The giggles hurt though, and they soon turned to coughs. Fang's expression turned serious; "Sit." She manoeuvred me back to the bed.

"You might have to stay here for a couple of days." Fang's face was pensive.

"I feel fine, I don't want to put you out, you done enough already."

"I won't put you back out on the streets like this, Officer." She smiled, "but I am assuming that there are people who would like to know that you're still with us. A husband? Family perhaps?"

"Just my sister, Serah. She'll be worried about me. I should get back and let her know-"

Fang interrupted; "You won't be going anywhere doll. Give me the address, and I'll inform her of the current situation. I'll let the station know too." She thrust a piece of paper and pencil at me; "Write. Then I'll go, and you'll stay. In the bed. No wandering."

I wrote the address feeling ever more in her debt, but something else was still bothering me. As I settled down back into the bed and Fang made her way up the stairs I asked her:

"Do I look the type to have a husband?"

She smiled, a big, beautiful smile. "You, my dame, most certainly do not look the married type."


	3. Chapter 3

FANG:

They'd bombed the street neighbouring to Earl, and so when I had opened the door the scene that greeted me was a bizarre chaotic mess. The oak trees still stood, yet some owned great wounds in their trunks, courtesy of shrapnel or brick. Almost all of the houses on my street were untouched, and every resident of them was out in the rubble, finding others, bringing them to safety as the sun shone brightly over it all.

A few police and fire fighters were helping, but I knew that there were many elsewhere in the city, all desperately trying to save as many as they could, whilst being shorthanded. I grabbed the nearest officer. "Excuse me, do you know Officer Lightning?"

The tall man looked me over, before deciding to introduce himself; "Officer Snow. I work with Lightning at the station, is she alright Miss…?"

"Fang, please. She's fine. I came to tell you that I'm looking after her, I patched her up after the bombs hit. She was hit with something pretty sharp in the ribs. She's had stitches but she needs to take it easy."

"I'll let the boss know, but just so you're aware, Lightning isn't very good at taking things easy as such. She's an all-in kind of woman. She'll want to be back at work."

"I'll keep that in mind. Thanks." I turned around to find myself face-to-face with a smaller version of the woman who was in my darkroom at present. Though this girl was filthy, having clearly been raking the rubble for the past few hours. Her face held a multitude of expressions; worry, exhaustion, relief and fury. It was particularly entertaining to watch.

"You must be Serah," I held out a hand, "I was just coming to find you at your home. About your sister-"

"Thank you." Serah threw her arms around me. "I heard you speaking with Snow. I've been out here ever since the sirens stopped, looking for her. I thought I'd lost her." the young woman stepped back.

"You're welcome. Would you like to see her?"

"Very much so."

We started back towards the house. Serah tensed when she realised just how close to the rubble I lived.

"We were safe. My house is untouched. "

"Lucky."

"Very." I pushed open the gate to let her in first. She hesitated, looking to me, uncertain about something. "What is it?"

"We weren't so lucky, that's all. The house... If you'd have seen it." Serah trailed off. Understanding dawned on me, and for the first time I noticed the battered leather suitcase in her grip.

"I'm sorry Serah. I really am." I couldn't imagine what she'd seen last night. "Was there anything left...?"

She gestured to the suitcase weakly. "You're looking at it." Serah looked as though she was about to cry, "I don't know how I'll tell Claire. "

I put a hand on her shoulder, "Tell her like you do everything else." She looks so young. I don't even know how old she is.

"Yes. I guess I will. Is it bad? Claire I mean?"

"Nothing that she can't get better from." I nodded to the house, "Let's get you inside."

I sat in the kitchen, listening to the quiet rise and fall of the two sisters voices from the living room. I had helped Claire up the stairs, after she'd insisted to see Serah in a light other than the darkroom. "Besides," she'd said, "I haven't even seen the rest of your house."

"There's nothing left Claire - nothing. It's as though Heaven Street never existed. I don't even know what we'll do. We have nowhere to live."

"The most important thing is that we're both alive and together. There are so many others who won't even have that. We'll figure something out."

Mog meowed at me, headbutting my palm. _You have room, here. Enough so that you can help_. It was true, I had both the spare bedroom and my room. Plus the darkroom... It was an easy decision to make. I never had been one to turn away someone in need - a quality which had incensed my mother growing up. I'd come home with all manner of creatures in hand; a bird with a broken wing, a stray kitten - who just so happened was allowed to stay - and once, an injured vixen, who'd lashed out at anyone and everything, except me.

They were sat on the sofa when I entered, Serah had fallen asleep on her big sister, who was bearing the pressure of her quite nobly, even though it would cause her pain. I went over and lifted the younger woman so that Claire could slide out, placing her gently down afterward.

The officer looked a little unsure of herself, stood leaning against the fireplace in a borrowed shirt, clutching an arm around her ribs, as though if she held herself tight enough nothing else could fall apart.

I bent down next to her to tend to the fire, fanning the flames.

"I am not easily frightened. I never have been - a part of me welcomed this war when it started, with the freedom it brought to women like you and I. It never occurred to me that the chaos would be in our backyard, here, when I signed up for the Police. I was so enamoured with the independence of it all, you know?"

"I do."I stood, and we were inches away. Understanding passed between us.

Claire turned to the small figure curled up on the blue patterned cushions. "But now... Now I'm ashamed to say that I'm scared. I can't lose Serah."

"You won't. You'll be fine."

"We've lost our home Fang. We don't have anywhere to go."

"So stay." Claire looked at me in surprise, her mouth a small "o". I rushed the words out; "I have more than enough room here. Enough beds -" she raised her eyebrow slightly at this "- so that you'll both be comfortable. You can't go back to work yet anyway, it's a good solution -" a brief finger on my lips shushed me.

"Thank you, it is. And it is very kind of you. We will, of course, contribute to the household whilst we stay."

"Of course." Warmth spread across my body, and it took a moment to realise what it was. _I won't be here alone._ The thought surprised me, but it came to me that there was a reason I spent the majority of my time in the darkroom, with ink stained fingertips and my gramophone playing jazz. I couldn't count the nights that I'd spent losing time and sleep whilst developing my art, in the haste to forget that it was just me. I smiled and found it mirrored in Claire's face, the fire flickering in her eyes, bathing her pale skin a light gold.

"Can I ask why?"

"Why what?"

"Why you would do something like this, for almost perfect strangers? It is just an incredibly rare kindness."

I thought of the lost and injured animals I'd looked after as a child, of Mog as a tiny mewling scrap of an animal, barely able to fill the space of my palm. "I guess I just have a soft spot for strays."


	4. Chapter 4

LIGHTNING:

Days passed, in our new temporary home on Earl Street. Serah lived in the spare single room, whilst I stayed in Fang's attic bedroom after she'd insisted I needed the space, and that she'd be fine downstairs. It was a beautiful room, and a luxury I felt intensely guilty about using. A huge patchwork quilt dominated the bed, which backed on to a window, so that when the sun rose, the warmth of it on your face was what woke you. Framed photographs littered every available surface mixed intermittently with perfume bottles and make up brushes. The large mirror I had first seen in a photograph hung on the wall next to the stairs down to the lower of the house. A print of Vivien Leigh was tacked onto the wall by pins, where the actress lounged, cup and saucer in hand, on the set of _Gone With the Wind_. The bottom of the poster was slightly worn away, as though by frequent tracings of its edge.

It was in this room that I recovered, and the house and its owner that started to find a place in my heart. Fang was enigmatic woman, and we got on very well. Serah took an immediate liking to her, as I knew she would, and later I would find myself a little jealous of how easily my younger sister could speak to her. They would both leave for work in the morning together, having soon realised that they both worked at the same factory. And though Serah worked in the office, and wasn't a 'bomb girl' as such, I gathered from her excitable ramblings that she had been introduced to all of the working girls on the floor. It seemed that Fang knew everyone, and I found myself wondering, not for the first time, why such a sociable woman would live alone.

Officer Snow came to visit twice, both times to ask when I would come back to work, and to try to subtly ask how Serah was too. After the second time and some choice words I'd told him a week, and to bring me some more uniform on the day. I had only a few days left of recovery (though both Fang and Serah insisted I needed longer) and was beginning to become restless.

I entered to the kitchen to the smell of pancakes, Fang was cooking, a large stack of them and a small pot of honey beside her. Her hair was hidden in its usual brightly patterned scarf, and I wished I could see it down.

I took a seat at the table. "Where'd you get the honey?"

"Oh hey doll," Fang took a couple of pancakes from the stack and placed them on a plate in front of me. "I took a family photograph for the boss at work a while back, payment."

"Must have been a good picture."

"Oh it was." She passed me a pot of honey and I spooned some out. _The colour... Not unlike that of her skin. Hers is deeper though..._ I stopped myself. There was a reason I had never married, that Serah and I no longer spoke to our parents. I had always loved women, and whilst I did not advertise it, did not expect anything to ever actualise, I had refused to lie to my mother about where my interests lay. Needless to say, she had cut me off, and Serah, faithful to me to a fault, had followed. "Why aren't you at work?"

"I thought I'd take the afternoon off. You must be going a little stir crazy in the house by yourself." She sat opposite me, green eyes flashing. "Maybe you'd like to go for a walk with me?"

Fang had taken time off from work to spend with me. My stomach did a small somersault. _Like a date?_ I wanted to ask her outright if she was similarly inclined, if she was like me. This wasn't something you asked though. She would have to tell me, for I couldn't presume anything otherwise. It occurred to me then that I was already carrying a torch for her, that when I had fallen into her arms that night, that my heart might have fallen too. _Oh God._

"I'd love to."

I changed into one of the few items of clothes Fang had picked up for me to wear - both her and Serah had gone out shopping at the earliest opportunity. A pair of navy swing trousers with cream buttons up the sides and a soft cream shirt. My police boots would have to do. I looked at my reflection critically, tucking the silvery pink strands of my unruly hair behind an ear. Something was missing. I glanced over to the battered suitcase with all that remained of my old home. It had been packed in the event that a bomb did happen to hit our street, hidden in an iron lockbox in the garden. I fumbled through it, picking out bits of golden jewellery hidden between Serah's journals and family photographs. I found the small make up bag and pulled out a lipstick, I was sure Serah wouldn't mind. The colour was rose pink, and I carefully lined my lips with it. Date or no date, I'd still like to show her that I can look well. Finally satisfied with my appearance, I headed down to meet Fang.

She was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs, her hair down in a mess of curls, falling over her shirt dress. A brown leather belt was laced around her waist, and a pair of lace gloves were tucked into it. She wore no make-up, but looked all the more beautiful for it, her camera was slung around her neck. As I walked down, she lifted the viewfinder to her eye, and I heard the shutter click before I could protest.

"You look wonderful, Claire."

"Thank you." I was suddenly shy as I reached her. "You dressed up."

"Well it is a celebration is it not? The first time you've left the house in days. Serah told me you're never usually this obedient about doing what your doctor tells you."

"I'm not, but I've also never been..."_ around someone like you_. That's what I had been going to say.

"...almost hit by a bomb?" Fang finished helpfully, before reaching out to take my hand. My heart raced and I had to remind my body to behave.

"So where are we going?"

"Well, you see, to have that walk we're going to have to take a cab."

I was glad of taxi, even though every pothole rocked my still healing body and I had to squeeze Fang's hand. It meant that we didn't have to walk past what used to be my home - I wasn't ready to see it just yet.

The driver dropped us off at the canal as the sun began its slow descent. Autumn was rife here, alive in the red and golden leaves of the trees surrounding us. Dragonflies flitted through the reeds swaying in the water, the clouds danced across the reflection of the sky. It was as though nothing had changed here, untouched by war and raids.

"It's perfect isn't it?" Fang laced her fingers with mine as the cab drove off.

"It is."

The walk was unexpectedly lovely, and for a couple of hours we were just two elegantly dressed ladies on an afternoon jaunt, enjoying the turn of the day. Fang took her photos boldly, surprising me when she asked a well kept elderly gentleman for a picture, as he sat on a bench reading The Times. He obliged, chuckling at something Fang had said as we walked away.

Curious, I couldn't help but ask her; "Why take a photograph of a stranger?"

"It's a feeling I get sometimes, that I want to capture as many moments in a memory as I can. When I want to preserve every bit of life I see." Fang fiddled with her camera strap, "I love the idea of a being a part of someone's story - they get to go home and tell their families that a strange dark-skinned woman took their picture today, and I get to keep a snippet of their day. It's precious."

She laughed; "It sounds a little pretentious doesn't it? But I do mean it. Although very occasionally, I take a picture for the pure, selfish, beauty of it."

"Actually, I think it sounds wonderful." I wanted to ask her what kind of photograph she deemed selfish, about her snapping the shutter as I came down to meet her only a couple of hours ago, and what had inspired her self portrait. It wasn't meant to be though. We had come to the end of our walk, and a taxi driver tapped impatiently on the window of his car. Fang must have arranged for it to pick us up a little earlier than we'd arrived. As we climbed into the backseat, I resolved I would ask her about all of it; the darkroom and her pictures, the laughing woman that frequented them. _Next time, because this will not be the last afternoon you spend with this wondrous lady._


End file.
